If you have never used http://sharpmobile.ca/ then you are probably submitting claims and getting your information the hard way. The development of insurance apps has revolutionized the way that insurance companies conduct business with their customers. No longer do you need to call a local office for more details about coverage or to submit a claim. Whenever you need more information or need to submit information you can simply accomplish that function with your phone. You simply download the app like you would any other and you have just about everything you could need from your insurance company at your fingertips.

Most of the apps have easy to use features that will guide you through the process of submitting a claim or even changing your personal information. You can enter all of the information that needs to be turned into your insurance provider and then take photos of the damage to attach to your claim. App claims are quick and efficient. Instead of having an agent come to inspect the damage you can take the photos and let them inspect the damage remotely. This saves time and money. Claims that are filed in this manner are usually settled more quickly than through traditional methods.

Many people are skeptical of this new technology but once they try it they realize just how easy it is to submit a claim or any other function in relation to your insurance account. Because pretty much everyone has a smartphone today, insurance companies realized that they could use that technology to assist their customers while saving themselves money by keeping agents in the office where they could help process claims quickly and efficiently. The development of the insurance app is one of the biggest developments in the insurance world in the last century.

If you haven't tried out an insurance app yet you should find the app download and give it a try. If you ever need to use it you will see that it will simplify the whole claims process as well as give you instant access to FAQs and your personal information. You can also look up information that is included in your policy if you need to reference it. No need to have to call or go to your local office. All you have to do is have your smartphone and open the app for insurance. You will be able to do what you need to do, and get back to life.

Digging through some old ephemera, I found these old printed maps I’d used to actually finish the game (the location/layout of vents in that game was just butts); naturally, I digitised them forthwith. I love how the designers were constrained to axis-aligned walls (coding angles is hard), but still managed to build these macro-pixelated structures: the Alien & Predator ships are the standouts, obviously, but I kinda have a soft spot for the escape pod at the very S end of Sublevel 5.

The major areas are shown below; you can get the full maps (with life-like vents and everything) here.

A while back, I made a short wifi-scanning proof-of-concept called Oases. I’m (still) working on an Android-powered spiritual successor (more on that soon), and I’ve been trying to find a proper label for it, for disambiguation purposes. I was about ready to settle on Invisible Gardens this morning, until I found out that that’s already an extant thing, with its own ID number and everything.

I’m working on a small jam project in Unity, for the purposes of which I needed wanted to import a greyscale heightmap into Unity’s reasonably-okay terrain system. Strangely, Unity only accepts .raw files as heightmaps, and I wasn’t able to find a satisfactory explanation online of how to export from the GIMP in a format that Unity will understand.

After a small amount of fiddling, I got it to work, so I’m writing down the process here, for posterity and glamour.

First off, I searched for “usgs heightmaps” in Google Image Search and found the following image, which I opened in GIMP:

I cropped and resized the image — note that your heightmap dimensions must be a power-of-two plus one, or 33×33, 65×65, 129×129, 257×257, 513×513, &c…

Next, from the GIMP, I chose File -> Export…, and exported the image as a .raw file:

Note that “Raw image data” is selected in the file type selection box. When you hit Export, set the following options:

Your image should be saved in the appropriate format.

Next, open your project in Unity, and add a Terrain to the scene (I’m assuming you’ve done that already, and don’t need my help). To import our newly-created .raw file, go to the Terrain settings and hit “Import Raw…”

Use the following settings in the “Import Heightmap” dialogue:

Yoda willing, that should just about cover it, and your terrain should look terrainy:

Once again, let me direct your attention towards the KO-OP devblog, where I talk a bit about one of our recent (unsuccessful) internal jams:

For our own Magic Carpet, we wanted to build something much more enjoyable and empowering; a sort of cross between the flying segments of Nausicaä and (at least for my part) Aladdin. We’d also been talking on-and-off about Shadow of the Colossus, Journey, and Kairo lately, so our story brainstorms tended in the direction of large landscapes and beautifully desolate ruins.

For my followers on this site: I dropped a truth bomb over at the KO-OP Mode dev blog. That is to say, I talked about how weightlessness is weird.

A good portion of Red Rover takes place on the first human ship to Mars, christened NOMAD-V (pictures posted previously). Since she doesn’t provide any form of artificial gravity, that means her occupant(s) will necessarily be bouncing around in zero-g; a mechanic that seems oddly under-represented in games.